Résumé

International Experience

In the Summer of 2017, I had the opportunity to travel to Germany, France, and Switzerland as part of my Philosophy of Education course at Liberty University. I traveled to several cities within these three countries as I learned about German education and the Lutheran Reformation. I had the opportunity to experience German, French, and Swiss culture in a variety of ways.

Three moments in my ten-day journey stand out to me. The first was my visit to Universitätstadt Heidelberg (the University City of Heidelberg). While there, we learned of the rich history of the university and were able to explore and visit the grounds. Shortly after this visit, the class interviewed our guide to discover the process of German education; this is the second moment. It was very interesting and helpful to learn about a system of education different than the one I am accustomed to. The third moment was on our second to last night on the trip. We stayed in a small inn near Lucerne, Switzerland. This inn was across the street from an elementary school. We were at the inn early in the morning, and we were able to see the children arrive at the school. The area we were in was very small, so there were no buses taking the children to school. Instead, most, if not all, of the children arrived, unaccompanied, by bicycle and began to play in the schoolyard. It was not until much later that an adult from the school came out to watch the kids as they played. There were no behavioral problems observed at this time while the children were unsupervised, and there were no issues with the children's arrival at the school. It was very interesting to see this in contrast to most American schools where children are usually supervised from when they are on the bus at the beginning of the day to when they are on the bus at the end of the day, and where behavior problems are very common. I only wish I could have had the opportunity to go into that school to discover how these procedures of traveling to school and playing in the school yard were taught so that I could apply the same to my own classroom.

My time in Germany was valuable in showing me a different system of education and in exposing me to multiple different cultures.